An Algae Farm Designed To Suck Up Highway Pollution

A highway overpass might seem like an unlikely place to grow algae, but actually it’s ideal: Car exhaust turns out to be the perfect fertilizer for multiplying the green stuff.

“In a prototype built above a busy Geneva highway this year, architects tested a system for growing algae in tubes… (which) can be used (eventually) to make biofuel or green electricity.”

A closed system of transparent tubes is used for the production of algae, which grow on sunlight and CO2, both abundantly present on the site.

The functioning of this bioreactor symbolizes the green practices of the future: food production in an urban environment, the conservation of green space, cleaning up emissions, and new types of energy.